BY D. EMBLETON, M.D, 15 



and Iceland Falcons, Mr. Hancock's discrimination and settle- 

 ment of the same enabled him to lay down this general law: — 

 "Not only do all the noble or true falcons acquire their adult 

 plumage in the first moult, but many of the ignoble species do 

 so likewise, as the Honey Buzzard, the Goshawk, the Sparrow- 

 hawk, and the Harriers. This fact cannot be too strongly 

 pressed on the attention of ornithologists, for it leads to a correct 

 understanding of the variations of the plumage of the Fal- 

 conidse." — (Catalogue, p. 10.) 



This is no mere dictum, but the result of long continued 

 observation ; and well indeed would it be were writers who 

 have very recently attempted to deal with this subject, to learn, 

 as Mr. Hancock has done, in Dame Nature's simple school, 

 instead of perpetuating error and confusion by grandly setting 

 forth their unsound and arbitrary views on the "first year's," 

 "second year's," and "third year's" plumage of birds of prey. 



In writing on this same question in Yol. I. of the last edition 

 of Yarrell's British Birds, p. 38, of which he is the editor, 

 Professor Newton says, "Professor Schlezel, Mr. Gurney, and 

 Mr. Gould, among others have adopted Mr. Hancock's opinions, 

 which it may be added are strictly in accordance with the 

 traditions of falconers, and to him therefore belongs the credit 

 of first discovering and making public the exact state of the 

 case." 



In speaking of the plates by which the Catalogue is embel- 

 lished, Professor Newton says, " All of them are characteristic, 

 and most of them excellent ; a fact specially to be noticed, since 

 they are chiefly designed from birds stuffed and mounted by Mr. 

 Hancock. Tet most of us who are old enough to remember his 

 beautiful contributions to the Great Exhibition of 1851, to say 

 nothing of the specimens of his skill which we have since seen 

 elsewhere, have therein no cause for surprise. In the art of 

 taxidermy — for art it is with him in a high sense — Mr. Hancock 

 has no equal now, and possibly never had but one, the late Mr. 

 "Waterton; and the diiference between specimens mounted as 

 these are and the handiwork of ordinary bird-stuffers is ap- 

 parent to any one who has an eye for a bird. Whether Mr. 



